Facebook has blocked the tiny Dutch start-up, Web 2.0 Suicide Machine and served them with Cease and Desist papers. Facebook claims the service acted in violation of their terms of agreement but Web 2.0 Suicide Machine insists it was merely enabling users of Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn — and, before all this went down, Facebook — to quickly and painlessly kill their virtual personae, automating and shortening what is usually a long termination process. While Facebook allows users to deactivate their accounts, they still keep all of their data stored on their servers. This has been long been an issue for the social media platform. Facebook deemed it a violation that Web 2.0 Suicide Machine used a script to scrape and delete data from the 350 million user strong giant–according to the user agreement Facebook owned every status update, wall photo and comment that a user makes, not to mention all of the contact information they have stored on the site.

In response to the Cease and Desist, Web 2.0 Suicide Machine has vowed to find a way around the ban, so that users who want to kill themselves on Facebook will have the tools to do it. When an interviewer pointed out to Gordan Savicic, Suicide Machine's "Chief Euthanasia Officer" that the publicity garned by this "David and Goliath" showdown was perhaps well worth the consequences for the fledgling company, Savicic responded:

"This already happened due to their ban.
However, we consider this project as a piece of socio-political net-art
(with all its consequences)."

Image by iboy_daniel on Flickr Courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.